"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).

Friday, May 14, 2004

Leopardi and Crates the Cynic

Leopardi, Pensieri VI, reads as follows (tr. W.S. Di Piero):

Death is not evil, for it frees man from all ills and takes away his desires along with desire's rewards. Old age is the supreme evil, for it deprives man of all pleasures while allowing his appetites to remain, and it brings with it every possible sorrow. Yet men fear death and desire old age.

I don't know if it's ever been noticed, but this passage in Leopardi recalls a poem by Crates the Theban, an ancient Greek Cynic philosopher, quoted by Stobaeus 115.9:

You cast my old age in my teeth, as a great evil.Death is the penalty for him who does not reach old age.We all desire old age. But when it arrives,We are distressed. So ungrateful are we by nature.